


Cost Accounting

by lazlong



Category: Back to the Future (Movies), HEINLEIN Robert A. - Works
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M, Time Travel, double-life, impure thoughts, lack of moral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazlong/pseuds/lazlong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cost Accounting

**Author's Note:**

> Comments loved and welcomed.

When it is thirties first time for first time, Doc listens to Louis and wants nothing more than to march with saints in, and be, to be in their number.

He is young, despite being well into his sixties, he is naïve, and he is idealistic. He wants to make the world the better place, for everyone, he wants, he wants, he wants.

He isn’t afraid of anything tangable, and his future – oh – it is so wide open. No, this is not said by Louis, this is somebody else, from future in _future_ , but it describes the sentiment perfectly.

Now, indeed sky is blue, life is wonderful – if only slightly boring – and friends are shaking hands with him and his beautiful Clara, and nodding to his offsprings. Cotton is high, indeed, and even if there is vague sense of something lost, he doesn’t exactly understand what it is, and he is not looking for it. Yet.

He listens to Louis for a month, and then, somehow dates and occurrences in his head start blurring, and he thinks about his personal time by Louis. There has been Mack the Knife, and it has been dealt with, but Doc has grown cautious in his age. He is afraid to travel, despite what he proclaimed to Marty, he is afraid to disturb the textile of time, his curiosity be damned. There is answer in Marty's eyes to question Doc hasn't asked, do not dare to ask, no, he can not imagine himself asking such a question. Therefore he decides for them both. Erring on the side of cautious.

Because no matter how he calculates, Doc staying 1886 and Marty in 1985 is the safest choice, for everybody: him, Clara, Marty, Jennifer.

 

When it is thirties for second time, and he is well over the middle of his sixties, and he thinks that if various incarnations of Biff didn’t kill him, the sheer boredom of mundane life will.

There is Louis again and a glass of whiskey, and while once upon a time he was content with a slow drag from cigarette while listening how the saints come marching in, now he doesn’t want to be in their number – he wants, oh how he wants, to be _back_. He doesn’t need saints, he needs himself again, and the part of old life that is missing more and with each day he needs most of all.

Instead of asking, he starts travelling.

He feels guilty, knows, he is stealing his life from Clara and boys, he is not getting younger and all this travelling makes matters only worse, but at the end of his day he loves himself above all things on this sinful earth.

The thing is, when he hops back-and-forth the future, future-in-the-past, past-in-the-past, he sees things. Lot of things. Things, of which some he loves, some he hates at the moment he sees them, but most of all – he sees Possibilities.

First he hates himself for wishing such a thing, feels disgusted with his alternate selves for even imagining such _action_ possible, not speaking about carrying it out, then, as his travels - in space and time – carry him on and on, he starts contemplating _how_ these actions could be possible to be taken, instead of feeling vague disgust and unclear desire.

Travelling, that started as short hops here and there, each night, that stretches further and further and then he finds himself hopping millennia and galaxies instead of days and miles.

But he still is a coward, and so, when first calling to well-known number before returning in the safe 1886, he still doesn't ask the question, answer to which is perched on Marty's lips since the moment he _first_ first stepped in 1885.

Instead Doc tells where he has been, what he has seen these years they had been parted (Doc) and these ten hours (Marty). At the very  beginning he considers editing his stories, then at the end of brief conversation, he invites _him_ along, right now, to meet glorious Holmes IV. Marty comes - of course, such offer won't be refused, he is as curious and with the same devil-may-care attitude as Doc; and so it goes, each night, from October 28, 1985.

Meeting Howard families is terrifying and enlightening. Liberating, to be able touch your toes and seeing sans glassess. Wishful thinking, fool's hope turns into planning.

There appear possibilities that hasn’t occurred before. All types of possibilities, various types of glances: speculative glances, sly glances, considerate glances. After they are set to return from _J'ai Qu'a L'regarder_ , 1945; he almost asks the question. Almost.

Has it been mentioned that Doc is not a good man, at least by the definition of the most religions and ethics of 20th century? He is not taking into his equation Jennifer anymore. He knows Marty is not a good man, too - because he has seen the look, when they part: days are for school and Jennifer, and nights are for travels and Doc.

But, no matter how he calculates, still it comes out that Doc returning in 1886 and Marty in 1985 is the safest choice, for everybody: him, Marty, Clara.

 

Then it is thirties for third time, and Doc takes a ride alone.  Louis isn’t enough, anymore; and it is Ruby, and her man is gone now; and Doc can’t find place he would like return to he can return. The easiest way when in doubt? Sniff a shot and let his drunken fingers press the keys. He wakes up, and it 1792 and it is _Aux armes, citoyens_  and it gets something started in his old bones; he stays for few days and he wakes up to Edith and _Pour qui ces ignobles entraves_ -only he is sure, that chains has been made by himself.

He sniffs himself into stupor and when he wakes it is into city where streets are paved with gold, but for him all ways lead to his Tipperary all the same: it is December 28, 1985. 01:35.

No matter how he calculates, there are no safe choices left for Marty and him.

He picks up phone, dials and asks the question he should have asked long ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Cookies to everybody who can spot allusions to songs and books :)


End file.
